


Slow Dive

by snapspark



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 08:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snapspark/pseuds/snapspark
Summary: A chance meeting with someone new shakes up Taeyong’s stagnant relationship, and he seeks answers from Doyoung who has loved him for years.





	Slow Dive

 

Doyoung’s doorbell rings at 10:30 pm, on a Tuesday.

“Mind taking in this vagabond?”

Taeyong was the last thing he expected to see. Standing in the doorway, he’s probably just closed up shop at the restaurant, lugging his stuff in a backpack, a plastic bag in hand from the liquor store sticking to the condensation outside the six-pack of cider he had brought for whatever occasion. 

Doyoung had been in the middle of brushing his teeth and memorizing a presentation, but this is a more than welcome intrusion.

“What makes him wander here this late at night?” Doyoung crosses his arms for show, but he’s barely holding back his smile and already dodging out of the way of the door.

“Long story. Please lemme in.”

“Of course.”

 

* * *

 

“I think I cheated on Yuta,” Taeyong breathes.

Startled, Doyoung takes a moment to let the conversation sink in.

They’re in his room, in the dark, on the sofa, their knees knocking together. Myriad questions run through Doyoung’s mind, but he has to start somewhere.

“With who?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Were you drunk?”

“No, I remember him and all of it. But his name slipped past me.”

Doyoung’s reasonably calm. But his mind begins dwelling on questions he wishes he could simply flit past. How many things does cheat mean? What kind of person could make Taeyong sway? How far did they go? Luckily or not, Taeyong is not reluctant to tell him everything.

They met at a party after a concert. Taeyong rarely goes to parties, but he went to this one for a friend. The concert came up in conversation with someone who asked, but his special person overheard and said that he just came from the same place. On top of sharing something valuable in common with Taeyong, something about him was mesmerizing. He gave off a very solid vibe, like he commanded the air around him. Not in an overbearing sense, but he seemed self possessed and confident in his identity. It hooked Taeyong’s interest instantly. He wanted to be friends, in the way one would want to be in the presence of greatness in case it might rub off on him.

“Then I found out he was a dancer.

“Then…we were talking by ourselves for the whole night. I can’t say it’s conversation I particularly remember, I think he really wanted to get close to me.”

“And you found out he liked men?”

“Yeah, tacitly. After that I was kind of in a daze. He kept looking at me with an overwhelming look. I started to get it after half an hour. But I wasn’t drunk, Doyoung. It’s more like I felt possessed.”

_Possessed enough to cheat_ , Doyoung finished the sentence.

“He kissed me slowly, it wasn’t out of nowhere at all, so I had time to react. But I didn’t. Truthfully, I really didn’t mind. I didn’t tell him a word about Yuta, either. Then we were making out and more, and I didn’t mind. I don’t know why I couldn’t protest. I can’t remember if the thought of my own boyfriend crossed my mind at all. Obviously if I think about it now, I know it would break Yuta’s heart. Not to mention make him really mad, because he’s pretty possessive.

“Help me understand, Doyoungie.

“I have no idea why I did that. What do I do now?”

Doyoung takes a deep breath.

“Well. Do you feel any guilt, hyung?” Depending on his answer, there are likely two very different courses of action.

Taeyong thinks about it. “I think I do. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“But not so much, right? Not so much if you didn’t think about him, if you let it happen.”

“I don’t know. You’re probably right. It’s hard to think. I’m very confused.”

_You put yourself and your wishes first_. Doyoung thinks there’s nothing wrong with doing that sometimes, but he doesn’t reckon it’s any good given as advice to Taeyong right now. Most likely Taeyong feels bad about the implications, but there’s no regret for what happened. Doyoung wonders what this says about his relationship, where Yuta and Taeyong are at after a year and a half of dating.

“Why _did_ you let it happen?”

“I didn’t mind…the idea. Of someone new, something new. Maybe just someone else, not in place of Yuta, but in addition to Yuta. I think I wanted to kiss him, and didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to.”

Doyoung knows, through previous conversation, that relationships mean something very vague to Taeyong. For Taeyong, his own self being the center of all connections, people weave in and out of his life through permeable barriers—all relationships are pure in themselves, without compartmentalization, distinctions, or rules. Relationships simply drift in and out through osmosis, constantly changing in form. Strangers to friends, to strangers again. Friends to lovers, to friends again. He made sure to never exclusively belong to anyone, and he liked it this way. From its inception, this had been a point of contention between Yuta and Taeyong that never could be resolved.

Doyoung thinks about how his seems to be the only relationship with Taeyong that he knows of that remained static—though not stagnant, for they evolved at the same pace alongside each other—for better or for worse.

His mind takes off on its own again. 

He thinks about what he would do if he dated Taeyong, all the freedom he would give him to do what he wanted, to explore and understand himself and his emotions. His attention had been completely drawn for a moment to his realization that he had no problem with Taeyong being intimate with other people, should the hypothetical condition of them dating stand true. Any minimal traces of jealousy within him is overpowered by his desire to see Taeyong flourish by his own terms, like a budding vine free to grow without restraint. He too wasn’t sure why. Maybe he just loved Taeyong so much, in every sense of that word, that he would let him do anything he wanted. Maybe it was his own curiosity, to let nothing stand in the way of understanding Taeyong, even if it means he was to play a negligible role in shaping him.

“I’m not too big on dating, Doyoungie. The usual jazz about romancing doesn’t really cross my mind. Instead, what I take time being concerned with are things like…” He thinks briefly. “Being happy. Enjoying work. Having a constant supply of good music. Being myself and stylish, at the same time. Smelling fresh ingredients, the cookbooks on my table. It’s things like this, and anyway, you know me. So I think my rules for myself are a little slack…a lot more slack than Yuta would probably like.”

Taeyong’s laid back style and Yuta’s intensity seem to hardly mash. “How did you come to date Yuta in the first place?

“Yuta and I go back…he had a kind of charisma that I really liked. Maybe something I lack myself.”

Doyoung thinks he’s dead wrong, but doesn’t interject.

“Something dark and intense, but in a warm and indiscriminate way. And I was drawn to how indomitable he seemed, like he could surmount any obstacle and never give up until he’s satisfied. I wanted to be near someone like that.”

Doyoung can understand—he respected Yuta in the same way. Yuta was a steadfast person and built all he had in life with his own hands, brick by brick. He’s only ever seen Taeyong lose himself to obsession when it came to Yuta, but it seems even this wasn’t enough to retain him. Maybe they gradually drifted apart. Maybe the passion simply cooled. Maybe romance changed into a different type of love and admiration that no longer made intimacy feel like it belonged within the relationship exclusively. There are a multitude of reasons why Taeyong would find himself involved with a paramour.

“Say…do you want to meet him?” Taeyong interrupts his thoughts.

“What?”

“I just remembered he punched his number in my phone. If I can find his name…”

 

* * *

 

His name is Ten, like the number. 

Quite honestly, he’s very different from what Doyoung imagined by what Taeyong described of him. Doyoung had expected someone tall and intimidating with a gaze that instantly owned people, but the boy he’s meeting is short, though his posture certainly makes him seem taller, though not larger nor intrusive. He looked inspired, fashionable, pleasing to look at and disarming at best.

“You haven’t seen him dance,” Taeyong defends, “and you haven’t seen the way he looked at me.”

Doyoung chuckles, taking a sip of his iced coffee and putting it back on the table. “I don’t doubt it.”

Conversation with Ten was easy. Doyoung could see why Taeyong would be able to talk with this stranger for hours, especially about music. Ten kept himself up the date in all the ways Taeyong did. He had enough knowledge of just about anything to sustain all manners of friendly chatter. He joked easily and laughed easily. Yet, by the end of their three hour walk around downtown, Doyoung has a feeling he still knows very little about this intensely private person, past his charm and public persona and the glimpses of him embedded in his taste in music. 

Ten comes back from the bathroom, his sunglasses stylishly clipped to the tip of his V-neck.

“Well guys, it’s been fun, but I gotta go. I have rehearsals to go to.”

“For your competition?”

“Yup, that one. Where are you guys off to?”

“We’re going to the beach.”

“Sounds like a good time. See you, Taeyong. Nice to meet you, Doyoung. Phone me up again next time!”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it for the sake of a smooth and amicable exit. A little while later, with Doyoung behind the wheel, Taeyong’s phone buzzes with a text.

“Pfft. Look at this,” he shows his phone to Doyoung.

Squinting at it for a second, he turns back to the road responsibly. “Read it to me.”

“He said ‘I hope you’ll invite me out alone next time’.”

Doyoung smiles really wide. “He’s your biggest fan.”

“We’ve met a total number of twice!” As he says this, a text flies in from Yuta that simply says _hey_ , and it pulls him back down from the clouds.

Taeyong rears himself, takes a deep breath.

 

* * *

 

They sunbathe in shorts on the beach. Taeyong spends most of his time with his head pillowed on his backpack and his face blocked from the sun by his phone, intently and rapidly texting. Doyoung sits beside him for what feels like hours, thirsty for conversation but holding his tongue. He asks who it is. With his brows scrunched from the sun or from the intensity of the quarrel, Taeyong tells him it’s Yuta. 

When Taeyong is focused on his phone, Doyoung is focused on Taeyong. He watches his friend’s soft dyed hair drift with the wind, watches him wet his lips in concentration, watches his lashes fan when he blinks. Being with him here reminds him of when Taeyong was young and would throw handfuls of sand into his own hair, only to shake it all out everywhere like a wet dog and get in trouble with their teacher.

How many more years will he get to be with him like this, before it’s someone else taking his place beside him? Will the time ever come when Taeyong thinks about settling down? If Taeyong were to meet someone who truly stole his heart, would he bend his own rules just to be with them, and when that time comes, would Doyoung continue to watch from the sidelines as he recklessly abandons himself? How much longer until he’s out of time, and the short reach between the two of them drifts apart into an impassable divide? One soft touch would do it—they’re not in the habit of physical contact often. Taking his hand, that would cast the spell. If Taeyong asked, Doyoung would surrender all of him. Hand in hand, where would Taeyong take them? Where would they need to go, when every moment is already timeless bliss, just like this?

“Ahhh frustrating!!”

Taeyong sits up abruptly. He chucks his phone down onto his towel and wipes the sand off his sun-reddened belly. “Sorry,” he looks down at Doyoung resignedly. “Things aren’t really going well in my world. Want to take a walk?”

“Sure. The sun’s about to set.”

They head along the beach, down a path they’ve walked a thousand times. Each time, the view of the ocean is just as stunning as the last.

“Want to talk about it?”

They come upon a clearing off the footpath and behind the trees, perched over the edge of a steep precipice. Barren spots on the ground tells them that many have used this jut in the rocks for campfires at dusk. Taeyong knows there’s a cove beneath: he’s seen people dive, though he has no idea how high up it is.

Here he sets his stuff down. Doyoung follows.

They sit amidst tall grasses tickling their feet through their sandals.

“Yuta’s wondering why I haven’t talked to him in three days.” Taeyong sighs.

They both take a moment to enjoy the breeze.

“What did you say?”

“I said a bunch of shit…I don’t remember. I just dodged his questions I think. It’s my fault for being bad at communicating or figuring things out.”

Doyoung watches Taeyong stand up, and pull his t-shirt over his head.

“What are you doing?”

Taeyong laughs. “Forgetting.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Jump.”

Then he readies himself, taking twenty steps backwards from where they sat. He bends a little like a runner waiting for the gun.

“I’ll be back.”

Poised, amped up, all his frustration coursing through his taut muscles, he propels himself forward while Doyoung stares in amazement, before any worry or thought of stopping him crosses his mind.

Taeyong’s foot leaves the edge of the cliff, and he’s taking off. Silhouette rimmed gold in the sun, arms raised beside him, he looks like he’s flying.

And it feels like it. Until he looks down.

Taeyong suddenly realizes it’s higher, a lot higher than he thought, and he screams.

An instantaneous reaction. Pure reflex. Upon the hill Doyoung bolts to his feet, flinging himself off the edge without a thought on his mind.

“ _Taeyong!!_ ”

Eyes wide open, he sees Taeyong’s splash in the water below him, but Taeyong is nowhere in sight. The moment he himself hits the water, Doyoung realizes he really didn't think this through. All of a sudden there is no air, and only the deep rumbling and stinging cold of the ocean. He stabilizes himself in the water, clenching his eyes and holding on to the last of his air that wasn’t knocked out by the impact. When he emerges, Taeyong is bobbing in the water, coughing his lungs out. Doyoung swims to him, but Taeyong doesn’t look all that upset. Doyoung’s own heart is pounding with a fear that’s slowly residing. Taeyong _really_ scared him. At the sound of his scream he forgot everything.

They make it to the beach, dripping a trail. Doyoung is soaked head to toe, clothes and all.

Taeyong shouts into the ocean while Doyoung has to sit and catch his breath.

Taeyong turns to him.

“Why did you come down too?!”

“Y—” He’s outraged. “ _You_ screamed my name!”

“I did?” Taeyong seems clueless. He really doesn’t remember.

“Listen,” his voice thins, losing the substance with which he just shouted, “I lost the bracelet Yuta gave me.”

Doyoung looks down at Taeyong’s hand, thumb rubbing his bare wrist now. Once upon a time, Taeyong had treated it as something so precious. “I’ll help you search the water.”

Taeyong thinks about it. “No, forget it.” On impact, he had felt the strings snap underwater, and can’t help feeling like it was supposed to mean something. Even if that didn’t, the neglect with which he treated it now certainly does.

Trekking for some time, they bring their stuff back down and sit in the cove watching the sunset. Doyoung picks some lone grasses, tall and golden, and idly starts braiding them together.

“Well, that didn’t answer any of my questions.”

Doyoung snorts. Taeyong laughs too, falling back onto the soft sand.

“Yuta and I…Yuta is here. And I think he will be here for me, at least for a little while more.

“Ten…I don’t know if he was meant to just come and go. If I mean anything to him at all beyond a momentary object of fancy. I think I do, but I can’t be sure. I barely know him.”

Taeyong feels trapped in the static, stuck between the binaries of ones and zeroes. There must be a way out of this black and white world. There must be some way to tap into the colors he’s been denied, a feeling less turbulent, more certain, more promising than the dismal shades he’s subjected himself to. Maybe it was time to be on his own again. Maybe he needed a space in which he could understand himself better. Aloneness—it had been like this forever before Yuta came, and Taeyong reckons he had been great on his own, he had made something of himself with no one but his friends by his side.

“What about me, as an option?”

“What?”

“Here.” Doyoung holds out the braided grass strip between his hands. Taeyong stares at it for a second, before realizing what was being requested. He hands over his wrist, and watches Doyoung tie the makeshift bracelet closed.

“If you’re indifferent to dating, why not try dating me?”

There’s a momentous pause. Doyoung is hardly breathing. Taeyong looks up from his wrist at his friend, fixing a perplexed gaze on him. Doyoung meets his eyes for what feels like forever.

“But you’re a friend to me, Doyoungie.”

_Relationships can change, they always do_ , Doyoung thinks.

“I know,” he says quietly instead.

“I didn’t know you swung this way.”

“It’s not like that,” he interjects, but he holds himself. This is a very difficult conversation to navigate, it’s so hard to represent himself the way he wants to. He’s grateful that Taeyong is listening to him before making any kind of conclusion. “Maybe it is, but only because I feel this way, and it’s only about you. I’m bisexual because the only guy I’ve ever liked is you.”

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say. He feels very touched all of a sudden to hear this from someone like Doyoung. He can’t fathom, for even a little, what kind of charm he himself holds to garner the attention of someone like his amazing friend, in a way that ran deeper than time and shared experience and loyalty. This, he was beginning to see, has its roots deeper into Doyoung’s heart than he’s ever imagined. Being at the center of attention for so many people makes him feel an acute sense of humility. He wonders if his self-effacing habit is really warranted. There are, undeniably, virtues in himself. There are things he loves about himself and things worth loving about him. It doesn’t come as a shock that he is someone people can notice and love, it just comes as a shock that someone really does. Someone who knew him inside out, who had been right here, politely and patiently shielding his feelings. What for? So he could continue to receive the full brunt of Taeyong daily, to have access to every facet of his kaleidoscopic tales of emotions, taking care to be an open space for Taeyong to creatively express all of himself without giving any hint of a reason for Taeyong to withdraw even the things that could hurt him.

“How long has it been like this? Why didn’t you tell me?” But he already knew.

“I thought I would take it to the grave, Taeyong.”

“Did you think I was going to stay away from you if I knew?”

“Are you not?”

Taeyong bites his lip. “Of course not. You’ve been attentive to my feelings this whole time. I’m not going to shy away from yours.”

“It’s fine, hyung. Please do whatever makes you comfortable.”

“And you? Does it hurt when I tell you these things? About Yuta, about Ten.”

Doyoung’s shoulders, which had been kind of held stiff in a pose he hoped looked relaxed, fall away from the pressure. He runs a hand through his hair. Suddenly Taeyong seems to notice, a gesture like this. He’s seeing Doyoung in a new light—he’s _noticing_ him—and he doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“You know. I thought about it, and I think it really doesn’t. It makes me wish it were me instead, but I don’t feel hurt when I see you happy with someone else.”

A punch to the heart. It’s so far, the stark opposite from what Taeyong was expecting. His pulse is accelerating and he looks over at Doyoung beside him, who’s staring off into the distance with a small, sated smile on his lips. Taeyong wonders what he’s thinking in this very moment.

“That’s kind of twisted.” Not in a bad way, he thinks, but he’s choking up. “I can’t handle this kind of confession right now.” There’s so much to process. There’s so much about one of his best friends that he was just realizing he didn’t know, and it’s unsettling. Taeyong feels like he’s teetering on the edge of a deep chasm. How deep it goes he’s scared to find out, but he’s getting an inkling of it from the feel of the breeze that beckons him from its core, blowing gently and coolly past his skin.

“That’s okay. But I hope you do think about it some other time.”

“I will.” He swallows hard. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I’m sorry. It felt—” _Right. Felt like time._ “I’ve only made you more confused.”

“I’ll live, Doyoung. Believe it or not, I can figure out myself.” He only relies on Doyoung so much because Doyoung seems to want to take care of Taeyong so much. That’s just their dynamic. But Taeyong is 24 and knows how to stand up on his own. He wants to, for his friend.

Taeyong takes Doyoung’s hand and gives it a squeeze. They know each other almost better than anyone else. There’s nothing that can shake their friendship, that much the two of them understand through this handhold.

 

* * *

 

Taeyong comes to visit again, without anything to offer in his hands this time. This time Doyoung is in the middle of a call with his brother, but he hangs up mercilessly when he sees who it is through the peephole. 

“Come in.”

“No, I’m okay. Maybe in a bit.”

Doyoung is startled. “Um, okay. What’s up?”

“I just came to tell you I broke up with Yuta.”

“Oh…” A long pause. “I see. For Ten?”

“No,” Taeyong looks down at his feet. “Our relationship means something different for him than it does for me now, that’s all.”

“How do you feel?”

“I feel okay. I feel…” _Lighter_. He doesn’t want to say it, but he knows. There’s a certainty behind it, and it makes him feel safe. “I feel okay thanks to you. Thanks, Doyoungie.”

“Don’t thank me. Stay a while? I still have some drinks in the…hyung?”

But Taeyong isn’t listening. He’s staring at his feet now, wondering if he’s making the right choice, wondering if there is a right choice to be made or if life is just haphazard like this. If there is happiness waiting for him to find in every decision. If he could come to feel towards people the way he wants to feel about them, or if he can’t. If he has any power to navigate himself through this crazy life at all. If he can’t be sure about anything, at least this was one thing he felt more certain about than almost anything else, with anyone else he can think of.

“Is being with you still an option?” He blurts.

Taeyong watches all kinds of expressions dance across Doyoung’s face as he takes the question in.

Finally, Doyoung lets out a breathless chuckle.

“Hey. Come inside.”

Taeyong does. When he turns back around after locking the door, Doyoung is there to hug him tight.

“I’m so glad.” He can finally, finally say it. “I love you.”

“You won’t be hurt if I stop liking you one day?”

“So hurt me.” Doyoung declares, looking into his eyes. “I’m not afraid.”

The words strike him down. The aimless wandering stops. The turbulent skies have released him from the endless tumbling in the wind. Suddenly he feels his two feet solidly on the ground again—gravity, he finds, hasn’t let him go. His face is pressed into his best friend’s shoulder, smelling the soft cotton and the faint scent of his hair.

There is so little they can know at this age. So when Doyoung’s words make him feel intrepid, Taeyong knows it’s enough.

 

 

 

The end

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is about freedom in love and being 22 (for me) as much as it is about their relationship. I try to write relatable characters but I never know if I'm the only one who feels a certain way. If you felt like something about this spoke to you, I'd love it a lot if you could let me know in a comment! ♡


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